Container structure with inhibitor



Patented Aug. l, 1939 comma sinus in :1.

Arthur E. Stevenson and Sylvester L. Flugge, Chicago, Ill., assignors to Continental Can Company, Inc., New York, N.--Y., a corporation of New York No Drawing. Application April '19, 1935, Serial R No. 17,357. Rene 4 Claims.

This invention relates to improvements in conta iners for food products, and is particularly concerned with the provision cf a container which is capable of enclosing a food product of corrosive character, 1. e., one which normally tends to attack 'tin plate or like product normally employed in making at least a portionoi the container.

According to the present invention, the food product is prevented from attacking the corrodible portion of the container by contacting this food product with a substance which operates. upon contact with the food product to'inhibit such corrosion. y

A particularly advantageous. manner'oi introducing and maintaining the substance is to include it as an ingredient in a coating, such-as the sealing compound which is employed for establishing the hermetic seal of the container. It is customary in closing tin cans, for illustration to make the final seal by crimping or seaming e edges oithe cover and body portions of the container into interlocking relationwith one another; the hermeticity of the seal being main- 5 tained by providing a plastic seal at this junction.

One manner oi providing the seal is to form the cover with a peripheral groove, and to distribute a plastic sealing compound into this groove and permit it to become semi-solid or solid therein and adherent to the groove walls. \When the cover is located upon the end of a container body, ahd crimpedthereto, this sealing compound is placed under compression -and thus serves to.

' form and maintain the tight sealing desired.

"When corrosive substances, such as the juices of certain preserved iruits,.-come into contact with,tinplate or like material, they tend to attack this material, particularly if the plating is imperfect, and to cause perforations ofv the containers; and also, when such material is dissolved, the true color of the food product is afiected deleterlously.

According to the present invention, the

cor-

wed April 18, 1939 as cystine, cysteine and methionine; and (3) sulpho-cyanates, particularly the alkali sulphocyanates such as potassium, sodium and ammonium sulpho-cyanates. These materials are innocuous in the quantities used (e. g., 2 to 4 milligrams are available to the can contents for a No. 2 can) and of themselves produce no fundamental change in the food product in the quantity utilized and brought into-contact with the food product. Such'materials may readily be incorporated in the sealing compounds normally employed in the manufacture of cans and like containers, and in the quantitiesutilized, they produce no disadvantageous eilect upon the consistency oi the sealing compound mixture itself. For'example, in the canning of sour cherries, a

sealing composition of resinous or rubber base may-have ten percent of thio-urea incorporated therewith, in proportion by weight relative to the deposited-materials (i. e., the drysolids") left uponevaporation of solvents and dispersing agents present. l

Other compositions of the nature set forth and claimed herein may be employed in proportions which may be varied according to the particular material utilized, the particular food ,product being preserved, and the nature of the corrodible container structure, and the relative proportion thereof with respect to the volume of the food product. I

, What is claimed, is: 1. A 'sheet metal container of tin platefor food products, of corrosivecharacter comprising a body portion, ends seamed to the body portion, and a plastic sealing compound within the seams tor hermetically sealing the container, saidseaiing compound being exposed to the food product contained in the container and including a'base, 1 effective for sealing and having a substance uniiormly admixed therewith which operates upon contact with the food productv toinhibit the corrosion thereby upon said tin plate, said substance being one of the carbon, sulphur and "5 action is vinhibited y presenting to'the nitrogen containing compounds consisting of food product a substance which tends to preventchm-urea, allyl thio-urea, cystine. cysteine,

this attack, this substance beingpreierably incompounds containing carbon,.

troduced as a component of a coating,'particumethionine and alkalisulpho-cyanates.

' 2. A container structure as in claim 1 in which 1! 8 8 omp nent of he se ling material. and the inhibitor substance comprises thio-urea.

in P p rtion. from five to twenty percent by weight of the dry solids oi the coating.

The preferred substances i'or this purpose are I sulphur and nitrogen, three particulartypes being found highly These types are: (1) thin-urea and substituted thio-ureas such as allyl thicinea; (2) sulphur-containing amino acids suchcyanates.

- ARTHUR E. STEVENSON. 8Y1- L. FLUGGE. 

